Refunding tenant for food

[Marco Gonzales]

Our tenant was out of power because we had to replace our breaker box, partly due to a storm recently, it took 3 days due to July 4th weekend nobody was available. We put the tenant in a hotel for 2 nights while we tried getting someone out to replace it. Are we required to refund them for the food that spoiled or is that a courtesy? We are from east Texas. They are asking us to let them use next months rent for groceries which is 695. Any advice will be helpful. Are we required to refund residents? Are we required to relocate them? )The breaker box is fixed now)

[Sergey A. Petrov]

Knowing all this well in advance, it sounds like you did tell the tenant there would be no power. You also put them up in a hotel. A reasonable human would do something with the food in the fridge instead of letting it rot. If your tenants knew this was about to happen and did nothing to protect their own belongings that’s on them and there is no need to give them seven hundred bucks to restock the fridge!